Getting started

Your own branded CRM for your customers, your pipeline and your team, with BLK-AI working it with you.

• Choose a plan, then your BLKCloud plan for your CRM files (Free is enough).
• Sign your agreements: one for each environment your subscription includes, each with the reason you're signing it.
• Pay the first month. Schedule, the Booking page and, on Base and up, BLKPhone turn on at once.
• Add your business details, colors, logo and your address, all on one simple screen.

BLK-AI: CRM is the BLK-AI-powered alternative to HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho CRM, Pipedrive, monday CRM, Freshsales and Microsoft Dynamics 365.

Plans, team members and BLK-AI interactions

Every plan includes BLK-AI: Communicate's Schedule and Booking page. Base and up also include the BLKPhone Plan, and Kingdom Oblivion includes BLKCloud Base. Plans grow in BLK-AI interactions, team seats and features.

The plans, prices and what counts as one BLK-AI interaction are shown live below and on the pricing chart. Unused interactions don't roll over. When a month's interactions are used, BLK-AI pauses until your next billing period unless you turn on "Keep BLK-AI on with my BLKCOIN balance"; your CRM never pauses for that.

Each extra team member is $19.99 a month.

Signing up: your agreements and why

Your subscription includes more than one BLK-AI environment, so you sign one agreement for each: the BLK-AI: CRM agreement, the BLK-AI: Communicate Included Plan Terms for the scheduling and BLKPhone your plan includes, and the agreement for the BLKCloud plan you choose (the Free plan terms, or the paid plan's own agreement in BLKCloud's checkout). Each one says, in plain words, why you're signing it.

• BLK-AI: CRM Subscription Agreement: your plan, price, BLK-AI interactions and team (plus the discount agreement for a 6- or 12-month term).
• BLK-AI: Communicate Included Plan Terms: the Schedule and Booking page every plan includes, and the BLKPhone Plan on Base and up. No extra charge.
• BLK-AI: BLKCloud: the Free plan terms if you choose Free; a paid BLKCloud plan is signed and paid in BLKCloud's own checkout, the next step after your CRM payment.

Payment stays locked until every agreement is signed. There's no waiting for approval: sign, pay and start.

Schedule, Booking page and BLKPhone (BLK-AI: Communicate)

Two parts of BLK-AI: Communicate come with every CRM plan, so you use one calendar across BBAIS. Schedule is your calendar: meetings with invitations and reminders, one time or repeating. The Booking page is a public page where clients choose a time; set it up in Communicate, Booking page. Every booking, reschedule and cancellation is saved in your CRM under Recent bookings, and you get a notification. People who book are told their details are also saved in your CRM.

On Base and up, the BLKPhone Plan is included too: CallBLK, BLKFace, BLKMessages, BLKGallery and BLKFiles, at /communicate/phone.

If your CRM plan's payment is overdue, the included scheduling and BLKPhone pause with it and come back when it's paid. A Communicate plan you pay for yourself keeps working either way.

Customize your CRM and your public page

Everything about how your CRM looks is on one screen, Customize: your business name, the kind of business, phone, email, website, your logo, two brand colors, your address at myblkworldhq.com, time zone, currency, business hours and the words on your public page. A live preview shows your public page as you type. Save changes, and Undo last change puts back whatever the last save touched; every change is kept in your history.

• Colors must be easy to read on your CRM's black background (at least 4.5 to 1); the screen tells you when a color is too dark. Button text is set to black or white automatically so it's always readable.
• Your address can use letters, numbers and dashes. It can't be a name the site already uses, and it's checked as you type.
• The first time, Finish setup sets up your first pipeline, what a deal is called and starter fields for your kind of business. Changing the kind of business later never replaces a pipeline you already have.
• Your public page at myblkworldhq.com/your-address shows your name, logo, words, hours, the contact details you choose to show and Book a time (your BLK-AI: Communicate booking page). Switch it off any time.
• Who can open your address: Public (the start, for everyone) or Private (only you and your team, signed in). A private CRM's page and web forms tell everyone else there's no page there.
• The kind of business list has over 140 kinds in 20 groups, technology, healthcare and government first. Type to search it (for example "software", "clinic" or "city"). Not there? Choose Any other business and rename things to suit you.

Your files: BLK-AI: BLKCloud, inside your CRM

Your CRM's documents and files are stored in BLK-AI: BLKCloud and open inside your CRM. You choose a BLKCloud plan when you sign up (Free is enough to start) and upgrade it on its own whenever you need more.

Files in your CRM's menu is your BLKCloud, right there: upload, open, share and organize without leaving the CRM. They're the same files you see at /blkcloud, never copies. If BLKCloud isn't started yet, Files lets you start it.

On Kingdom Oblivion, BLKCloud Base is included while your CRM plan is active. If you also pay for a bigger BLKCloud plan, the bigger one is used.

Plan & Billing, cancelling, and your other environments

Plan & Billing in your CRM shows your plan, BLK-AI interactions used and left, and BLKCOIN spent on BLK-AI. Pay following months from Pay Subscription, change plans, or cancel online any time, the same way you signed up.

Each environment is its own subscription. If your CRM plan isn't paid, only the CRM and what it includes pause; a BLKCloud or Communicate plan you pay for, and BLKCloud's Free plan, keep working. Nothing is ever deleted.

Contacts, companies, leads and deals

Each kind of record has its own list in your CRM's menu (deals use your industry's name for them, like Transactions). Search, sort, filter on any field, and save a filtered list as a view your team can use. Select records to set a field, add a tag or archive them together.

• New adds a record. If someone with the same email or phone (or a company with the same website or name) is already in your CRM, you'll see who, and can open them or save anyway.
• Every change is kept in the record's History: what changed, from what, to what, who and when. Editing never blanks a field you didn't touch.
• Archive hides a record; nothing is ever deleted, and Restore brings it back.
• Merge a duplicate into a record from the record's page: blanks are filled from the duplicate, its links move over, and it's archived pointing to the one you kept.
• A lead converts into a contact (and its company), with or without a deal; the lead is kept, marked converted.
• Your own fields are added on the Customize screen, in Your fields: a name, where it goes and what kind it is. Retiring a field hides it and keeps its values.
• Each record's Files tab is a folder for it in your own BLK-AI: BLKCloud, the same files you see at /blkcloud.
• Bookings from your Communicate Booking page become contacts automatically (matched by email), with the booking on their history.

Import from a CSV or Excel file of up to 10,000 rows: match the columns, check the file (nothing is saved until you import), choose what happens to people already in your CRM, then import. You can undo a whole import. Export any list as CSV or Excel at any time.

Pipelines, the board, products and line items

Deals (named for your business, like Transactions) open on a board: one column per stage with how many deals, their total, and the total weighted by each stage's win chance. Drag a deal to another stage, or use its Move to control, which works by keyboard too.

• Change your pipelines on the Customize screen, in Your pipelines: each stage's name, win chance, whether it's open, won or lost, after how many days a deal in it is going cold, and what a deal needs before it can enter (a stage gate). Your plan sets how many pipelines you can have.
• A deal moved into a stage it isn't ready for asks for the missing details right there. A deal moved to a lost stage asks why, from your list of lost reasons.
• A deal can be split between people on your team; the shares add up to 100%.
• On Pro and up, Products lists your products and services (price, SKU, tax, one time, monthly or yearly) and price books with their own prices for a kind of customer. A deal's Line items take those prices, apply discounts and tax, and the deal's amount becomes their total.

Tasks, calls, notes, meetings and My work

Every record has Activities. Add a task (due date, priority, who it's for, and whether it repeats), log a call (how it went and how long), write a note, or schedule a meeting. Everything shows on the record's Activities and History.

• A task given to a teammate tells them. Finishing a repeating task makes the next one.
• Mention a teammate in a note and they're told.
• Schedule a meeting from a record and it's set up in BLK-AI: Communicate's Schedule, your one calendar; the record's email gets the invitation, and the join link is kept on the record.
• BLKPhone calls (CallBLK and BLKFace) with someone already in your CRM are logged on their record by themselves, answered or missed. Nothing about what was said is kept, and a call never adds a contact.
• My work lists your open tasks: overdue, today, the next 7 days, later and no date.

Web forms, who gets new leads, and lead scores

On Base and up, Forms builds web forms that put new leads (or contacts) straight into your CRM. Each form has its own address, myblkworldhq.com/your-address/f/form-name, and an embed code for any website. One form can be the contact form on your public page.

• Choose the questions from your lead or contact fields, which are required, an optional consent checkbox (its wording is kept on the record), a thank-you message and a page to go to after.
• Someone already in your CRM (same email or phone) has their record filled in, not a duplicate. Everyone new is a lead with the source "Web form".
• Forms filled by bots (a hidden field, or sent faster than a person can type) are thanked and dropped; too many from one place in an hour are refused.
• Who gets new leads: rules in order, the first that matches picks the owner, one person or a group taking turns. A lead you give an owner yourself keeps it. The owner is told.
• On Pro and up, lead scores add up points from rules (for example +25 for a director, +15 for coming from a web form). Sort and filter leads by any score.

Email: one-to-one, templates, sequences and campaigns

Email in your CRM's menu connects your Gmail once, through BLK-AI: Communicate (one connection for all of BBAIS). Emails go from your own address and sit in your Gmail's Sent folder. BBAIS only gets permission to send: it can't read your inbox or see your password.

• One-to-one, every plan: open a contact or lead, then Emails. Start from a template or add a snippet, fill merge fields like {{first_name}} or {{booking_link}}, preview, send. It's saved on their record with whether it was opened and which links were clicked (opens are an estimate: some mail apps load images on their own).
• Templates and snippets, every plan: whole emails and reusable pieces, with merge fields from the record and your business.
• Sequences, Pro and up: steps that wait some days, then send a template or give you a task. Someone leaves when they book a meeting, fill in your form, unsubscribe, or you press "They replied" on their record (BBAIS doesn't read your inbox, so replies are marked by you).
• Campaigns, Pro and up: one template to everyone in a saved view of contacts or leads, one email each. Anyone who unsubscribed is skipped.
• The rules are built in for every marketing email (sequences and campaigns): an unsubscribe link and the one-click unsubscribe Gmail and Yahoo show, your business's postal address (required before the first one goes), and the line "This is a marketing email from" your business. An unsubscribe works at once and stops everything to that address, one-to-one included.
• Daily limits: your plan's (100 Lite Base, 250 Base, 1,000 Pro, 2,000 Kingdom, 5,000 Kingdom Oblivion for the CRM) and Google's for each address (about 450 for a personal Gmail, 1,900 for Google Workspace). Email shows today's count.

Schedule and Booking from BLK-AI: Communicate

Your CRM's Schedule and Booking tabs show the meetings and bookings that came in from BLK-AI: Communicate. Each tab has a switch (owner or admin) that starts off:

• Copy every meeting I schedule in Communicate into this CRM: each one shows in Schedule and on the record of every invitee already in your CRM. Moves and cancellations follow.
• Copy every booking on my Communicate booking page into this CRM: each shows in Booking, and the person is matched to their contact or added as a new one. Their email sequences stop.
• Switches off: nothing comes in, except what you send yourself with "Send to my CRM" on a meeting in Communicate's Schedule or a booking on its Booking page. After that it reads "In your CRM".

What's being built next

• CallBLK, BLKFace, meeting and scheduling links you generate or send from each client's record, then quotes, automation, reports, service tickets and BLK-AI in your CRM.